


Knotted Up

by chalcopyrite



Series: One Boy Headstrong [2]
Category: Bandom, Disney RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 16:22:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chalcopyrite/pseuds/chalcopyrite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mike goes on a solo investigation.  Things go sour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knotted Up

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Hurt/Comfort Bingo 2011, for the prompt "archaic medical treatment."

_"Finally,"_ Frankie says, when Mike's communicator connects on the fifth try. "I've been hanging out up here for ages."

"Yeah, I know. Can you pick me up?"

He can hear Frankie tapping at buttons. "I can be at the shuttle port within an hour. When do you need me?"

Mike ducks his head around the corner of the doorway. The alley's still clear, but he doesn't want to stay put for very long. "Uh, now? But yeah, an hour. See you then."

"Is everything all—"

Mike cuts him off. "Gotta go." He shuts the comm and hustles down the alley. Plenty of time to lose any tails before he meets Frankie.

"You look awful," is Frankie's first observation when Mike closes the shuttle hatch behind him.

"Thanks, good to see you too." Mike slumps into the co-pilot's chair and winces forward. "Can you get us out of here?"

"Getting." Frankie's already busy with port control, getting clearance, swapping codes. It's a matter of minutes before they're in the air again. Mike grits his teeth against the residual gee-forces that the dampers don't compensate for, pressing him back into the chair.

"Leaving airspace, thanks guys," Frankie tells port control, and sets the course to take them past the small moon and out to Davros VI, the next planet out. He checks everything one last time, then sits back and glares at Mike. "Where the heck were you? Kevin's gotta be frantic by now."

"I know, I know." Mike rubs one hand over his face. "Things got complicated."

"Should I message Kevin to meet us off the station?"

"Probably a good idea. Some people weren't happy when I left."

"No kidding. What happened to you?"

Mike drops his hand and scowls. "I'm fine."

Frankie glares right back. Mike's never going to tell him it makes him look kind of hilariously like a mini-Nick. "You got hurt."

"It'll keep." Frankie's glare intensifies. "I mean it. I don't think there's anything you can do, and I'm not going to drop dead before we get back to the ship."

Frankie gives in. "All right. But go lie down, will you? I don't want you passing out in my cockpit."

That actually sounds like a really great idea. Mike pushes himself up, wincing again when he puts pressure on his right shoulder. "Wake me up before we dock?"

"Yeah, yeah." Frankie's already turned back to the viewpanel. "Take your boots off before you get near the bunk. You stink."

Mike totally has a comeback for that, but right now he's too busy falling — gently — facedown on the thin blanket to cut Frankie down to size.

"Mike?"

"Nnnnn." He shoves his face deeper into the mattress.

"Mike." This time there's a hand on his shoulder, right over— he jerks away from the touch and smacks his face into the opposite wall.

"Ow."

"You all right?"

He nods, sucking air in between his teeth. "'M fine."

"Course you are. Wanna roll over so I can see you?"

Mike wiggles around until he's facing Kevin, and props himself up carefully on his left elbow. "Frankie was supposed to wake me up before we got here."

"Sorry," Kevin says, pushing Mike's hair away from his face. He doesn't sound very sorry. "He said you looked like you needed it, I told him to let you sleep. What happened to you?"

"Got in a fight, hurt my shoulder." Mike tips his head instead of a shrug. "Some guys didn't like me asking questions."

"I'm surprised." Kevin lays a blissfully cool hand against Mike's forehead. "You're running a temperature. Come on, med bay."

"I got the info," Mike offers, once he's sitting on the cot in the med bay, kicking his heels.

"Good." Kevin putters at the counter. "Take your shirt off, let me have a look at your shoulder?"

"Uh," Mike says, a few seconds later. "I can't."

"What?" Kevin turns around with his hands full of stuff, then has to turn back to put it down again so he can help Mike out of his own shirt. "You did hurt your shoulder, didn't you?"

"I just don't want to —" _stretch it_ , Mike doesn't say, because Kevin's already moved to the side to look, and his hiss of breath tells Mike that it's just as nasty-looking as he had guessed.

"What the _hell_ , Mike."

"There was a fight," he mutters.

"No kidding. What did this?"

"I don't know. It might have been the door lock?"

"And then — never mind." Kevin shakes his head sharply and goes back to the counter to collect everything. He sets it all down on the bed next to Mike, then goes back to the cupboards for more. "Was there a reason you didn't get it taken care of properly, if you were determined to keep going?"

"They don't really have proper clinics on Davros," Mike says. His head hurts. His everything hurts, actually. "And I didn't want to risk a trail leading back to us."

"Then call for a pickup, and you can go back in once you're not bleeding," Kevin snaps. He knocks the cupboard door shut with the side of his knee and circles the cot to stand behind Mike. "Instead of being an idiot."

"Sorry."

Kevin heaves a deep sigh. It tickles Mike's back, and he wants to lean in and flinch away, all at once. "Yeah, good. Whoever you went to used _stitches_ , Mike. With actual _knots_."

"Yeah." He hadn't had time — or a mirror — to check it out, but it felt funny, different from sealed skin.

"Okay, deep breath, and let it out slowly." Even though he's clearly kind of pissed, Kevin's hands are gentle. First there's the sting of topical anesthetic spray, then spreading numbness. It's only when it stops hurting that Mike realises how much he's been bracing himself against it the whole time.

"I'm going to have to take these out," Kevin says. "I don't think it got cleaned out properly before the stitches went in. Did he even wash his hands?"

" _She_ did, yeah," Mike says. "Look, she didn't have all that much, and I didn't want to use up what she had, when I knew I'd be coming back here."

"Laudable. Next time, _come back_ instead of hanging around getting possible blood poisoning."

There's a snip, and a weird, disconnected tugging feeling, and a small tangle of black thread drops into a dish next to Mike. It looks like a dead spider.

"So what did you find out?" Kevin asks, snipping another stitch.

"You want to hear about it now?"

"I need something to distract me from how much I want to smack you for being an idiot." Another messy knot drops into the dish. "Try not to move, though."

"Right." Mike tries to think of where to start. "I think what happens is they send the kids up to the moon in ones and twos, hidden in with legal cargos, and then they ship them out from there."

"Did you find out who's holding down that end?"

Mike starts to shake his head, then stops himself. "That's when people started objecting to me asking questions and I yelled for Frankie. I think we might need to hang out at the base for a while and just collect pieces."

"I was hoping it would be easy." Kevin lays the tweezers down next to Mike and picks up the gauze and disinfectant. "Okay, another deep breath."

The sting of the disinfectant cuts through the vague numbness of the anesthetic and Mike ducks his head.

"Sorry, almost done." Kevin works fast, but he's thorough. By the time he's done, Mike feels like his whole shoulder has been flamebroiled like a vat-steak, but it's a clean hurt, not like the low itching under the scabs before.

"So what about the procurement? Did you get any solid info there?"

"I have a few names. Places, not people, they kept coming up. I think that's how they're finding their targets."

"Ugh. Okay, sit up straight." Mike complies and feels the weird buzz of the dermal sealer tracing along the cut on his shoulder. "Do we need backup for this?"

"Probably." Mike thinks about it. "There may be a pretty wide network. But we could get more info before we go looking for help."

"Might be better with fewer, yeah." There's a last swipe of gauze over Mike's shoulder and Kevin strips off his gloves. "Your turn to wait with the ship and worry, this time."

Mike growls. "What if you need me?"

"Then we'll call you." Kevin dumps gloves and used gauze in the medical incinerator and turns around. "You need to rest that arm, anyway."

"It feels fine now." Mike flexes to demonstrate.

Kevin watches him with a smirk curling around his mouth. "Stop trying to distract me. You're staying as backup."

Mike picks his shirt up and busies himself untangling the sleeves from the neck. "Promise you'll be careful, and yell if anything feels weird?"

Kevin's feet move into his field of vision and Kevin tips his chin up with one finger. "I will be careful. I know." He holds Mike's face until Mike nods, then he kisses Mike's cheek and lets go. "Come on, I'm a little afraid of what Frankie's gonna get up to in nav."

"You forgot the important part." Mike turns his shoulder towards Kevin and raises his eyebrows expectantly. When Kevin still doesn't get it, he makes exaggerated fish-lips.

Kevin blinks at him, then snickers. He leans forward and drops a kiss at the top of Mike's arm. "There. Better now?"

It's easier to pull up a smile. "All better."

If he shakes his ass a little as he leads the way out of the med bay, pulling his shirt back on, well, he has to get his fun somewhere.


End file.
